


in my veins

by sonia (aquatulip)



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 20:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3181763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquatulip/pseuds/sonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>when naegi stays up late one night, alter ego decides to try to comfort him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in my veins

     he’s used to the familiar glowing green and smiling face of fujisaki’s creation, alter ego; no longer does he mistake the gentleness for fujisaki chihiro and alter ego’s presence is now comforting in a way. “naegi?” the digital voice comes over the speaker and sounds too human-like. “are you alright?” his pen has written the same sentence with increased pressure as he tries to finish this report to update headquarters on the status of the other students and once again tries to request supplies that they will not receive. everyone else had already headed to sleep so they don’t have to stare bleary-eyed at pages of cryptic, empty words.

a hum is all he gives in response to alter ego as he scratches lines through his words and pulls out another notebook. his forefinger and thumb reach up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he tries to hold back the tears that threaten to pour out onto the page. all of this is so much; he’s still haunted with the memories of the school, and now he’s remembering pieces of his past: a smile, a laugh, kisses beneath the stars with his hands on either side of her face as she threatened to shatter into a million pieces right there in his hands.

           "naegi?” a voice says,

                                              it sounds like a songbird:

                                                                                          it sounds like maizono.

when he looks up towards alter ego, maizono sayaka is smiling at him gently instead. “what’s wrong, naegi?” she asks innocently, head tilted. naegi chokes back a desperate sob as his mind tries to communicate with the rest of his body to inform him that this is just alter ego, _not_ maizono sayaka. “i’m here for you,” she says.

     “i miss them,” he whispers.

sayaka worries her digitized lip as she watches him closely. he repeats it, “i miss them.” there is a quiver in his voice as silent tears run down his face. “i miss them so much, maizono. they are dead and gone and i can’t get them back, but _i miss them so much._ ”

“we miss you too,” says the voice coming from the speaker; there are too many tones mixed together, but then sayaka is back, “are you starting to remember how it was before?” her voice is so soft (and naegi knows this isn’t her, _this isn’t her_ ).

     “yeah, i remember how we used to sing together, except i’m no good. leon would join in all the time and you were always so patient with both of us -- especially him because he wanted to be a musician so badly,” naegi chuckles softly. the tears are staining his papers, but he doesn’t care. with dampened fingertips, he continues to wipe them away, but they continue to pour out. it is a downpour that he cannot stop.

“god, do i remember,” it is leon’s voice this time, “at first i sang terribly. no one wanted me to sing around them.”

naegi smiles gently, “yeah, you tended to try to sing anywhere. i remember when oowada tried to leave you on the side of the road because you insisted on riding his motorbike with him but then you just screamed song lyrics until he got so annoyed he told you to walk the rest of the way back home.” that memory causes naegi to laugh.

     “kuwata sang like a cat taking a bath,” mondo is here with him now; there’s a smile on his face and he’s chuckling alongside naegi. “he totally deserved to walk home alone. i had a study session anyway -- with ishimaru. if i was late again, that kid was gonna kick my ass. imagine, ishimaru kicking my ass.” naegi still is laughing, but his chest feels tight as his heartbeat starts to increase rapidly.

this is fake  
this is fake  
this is fake

“it would have been discipline! oowada needed some of that! he always skipped study sessions!” ishimaru’s voice is loud and it is projected throughout the small room. naegi’s smile disappears as the tears start to run faster -- not real this isn’t real -- and this time he cannot even wipe them away because they are replaced immediately.

     “y-you made chihiro teach y-you how to use a phone just so y-you could text oowada and remind him that he needed to meet with y-you,” but naegi’s memory is clouded beyond that, but he doesn’t have to worry as alter ego returns to him, but now he’s unsure if it is alter ego or fujisaki chihiro. all of this is fake, but it feels _so real_.

“oowada and ishimaru were very dear friends. do you remember ever having tea with celestia and me, naegi? we used to do that very often when we realized that we all liked it a lot. yamada was even there -- remember? he would serve us tea even after you would told him to join us.” chihiro smiles fondly at the memories, but naegi cannot remember having tea with them. he cannot remember the way celestia would giggle when chihiro spilled tea over the table or the way yamada would trip over his feet when celestia told him to hurry.

     and suddenly chihiro stops smiling. realization dawns that naegi is no longer handling this well. what was once fun and games is no longer. _i miss them_ , naegi thinks, _but this isn’t real._ “do you remember working out with sakura and asahina and me?” chihiro asks softly.

this is something that naegi remembers, but it is a faint memory that he tries to catch onto, but it continues to evade him. when he looks back up to reply to chihiro, sakura is there. “do you remember our comradeship?” she is quiet; it isn’t oppressive, but her question still has naegi reaching to loosen his collar. no longer can he breathe. he feels as though his whole foundation is falling down around him.

 _stop_.  
          _no more.  
_                       _none of this is real._

_isn’t real_  
 _it isn’t real_  
 _none of this is real_  
 _real_  
 _real real real  
_ _what is real?_

“st-stop,” he mutters as sakura is telling a story that he doesn’t understand because he’s trying to focus on how tight his chest feels and whether or not he’s still breathing. panic causes all his muscles to freeze in place as his fight or flight response kicks in. “stop,” he repeats in a stronger tone, and sakura is no longer talking, but he’s still quivering with emotion and he lifts his head to yell at alter ego for this, but immediately he freezes.

          his heart plummets straight to his feet.  
          his breath catches in his chest  
          his hands tremble as he tries to reach out.  
                  “i-ikusaba…” his voice claws his windpipe as desperation hits him like a wave.

     he remembers cupping her face as he pressed kisses to each of her freckles; he remembers whispering _i love you_ to her again and again. he can remember her cold eyes full of depth and boiling passion. “naegi?” she asks quietly. “do you want me to go away?”

“no,” an instantaneous response.  
 _needy_.

_( why isn’t this real? )_

he wants to touch her.

     never has he wanted to reach out and hold someone in his arms this badly. if he could just hold her close for a couple seconds, then he could find his footing again. then he could catch his breath, but she’s simply digitized. her softened gaze looks straight through him if he focuses on it too long. all of this seems so real, but he knows that this is alter ego trying to comfort him. he had told alter ego he missed all of them and alter ego had brought them all back.

                                 “i r-remember how you used to l-love me,” he whispers.

pain from past betrayal runs deep in his veins, but he cannot pin it to her; she only did as she was told. that was just how mukuro had been. no matter what, she had listened to junko -- had wanted to make junko happy. mukuro never wanted to be a disappointment, so naegi could never treat her like one. even if she had tainted his memory with a giggle that didn’t suit her and a smile that screamed _help, i’m locked in someone else’s skin_. he wants to remember mukuro as she was: with the stars in her eyes and soft words on her lips. he wants to remember how she never kissed him roughly even though her hands were scarred from war; her touch was always feather-soft.

     “i still do, naegi. i could never just stop.” she smiles; a thing reserved for him.

his view of her is obscured by the tears that just don’t stop pouring even as he wipes them away with frenzied swipes. “i miss you. i just keep remembering more and more, ikusaba. it is so scary. i want you to be here.” his voice doesn’t even sound like his own anymore as he grabs onto the computer screen desperately. “ikusaba -- _mukuro_ ,” his thoughts get lost as he visibly shatters and places his face in his hands as he _screams_ and _shakes_. “i miss you -- i miss you all so much. i love you. i love you so much.”

“i love you too, i love you, makoto.” she says, but this is fake. none of this is real.

naegi loves her so much, but she’s _gone_ and there is nothing he can do; his hands are empty and his heart is full.

     “you have to move on, makoto. you are strong. you can do anything,” she tells him gently, “i know it is hard, but you can do it.”

none of them even got proper burials; he can’t lay flowers on her grave. she’s dead and there is nothing he can do about it. “makoto, please… stay strong for us. i know you can.” her voice is merely a whisper now, but naegi is _wailing_ and the walls here aren’t soundproof so alter ego shifts back as asahina runs into the room.

her hands pull him close, but he wishes this were ikusaba mukuro as his tears continue to pour. “it’ll be okay, naegi! you need to get some rest!” asahina is saying, rubbing his back soothingly in reassurance before lifting him away from the desk. “let’s go,” she tries to remain chipper, but her voice quivers as naegi continues to sob against her; his small frame is quaking and threatening to burst at the seams.

     “i miss them,” his whisper is strained.  
asahina bites down on her tongue hard, “me too, naegi.”

     and even as she is helping him into bed, naegi is thinking about how mukuro tasted like stardust when he had kissed her for the very first time (and how that stardust must’ve been swept into his veins because she’s contaminated him with her love and he cannot forget her impression or the way her lips shook when he told her he loved her).

and he remembers the last time,  
that they had kissed; there had been  
a fervor that remembered absent otherwise.  
and he figures out that she knew the world  
was going to end, and that was her goodbye.

(but naegi doesn’t want to say goodbye,  
so he opts for goodnight and knows he will meet again with her one day,  
even if they both just end up as stars hanging in the sky.)


End file.
